A WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Checklist for Growing Stores
Last September, WordPress.org blocked hosting company WP Engine from its resources, and WP Engine customers suddenly couldn't install or update plugins and themes from their admin. It was a reminder of how much a WooCommerce store depends on parts its owner doesn't control.
Published Mar 19, 2025. Author: Ecomm Guys. 4 min read.
Key Points
- The WP Engine ban showed that WooCommerce stores rely on a chain of hosts, plugins, and update servers.
- Products and customers move to Shopify by CSV or Shopify's free Store Migration app.
- Historical orders, reviews, coupons, blog posts, and customer passwords need extra steps or third-party apps.
- Products with more than three variation attributes need rework, because Shopify products allow three options.
- A full 301 redirect map is the most important step for protecting search traffic.
What the WP Engine Dispute Showed
On September 25, 2024, WordPress.org banned WP Engine from accessing its resources, such as the plugin and theme directories, pending legal claims between the two sides. TechCrunch reported that, as a result, sites on WP Engine couldn't install plugins or update themes from the WordPress admin, and developers pointed out that this also cut off a route to security updates. WP Engine said it was working on a fix.
Most WooCommerce merchants weren't on WP Engine, and the dispute was about trademarks and contributions. But it showed how a WooCommerce store's health depends on its host, its plugins, and the services they connect to. Each plugin needs updates, each update can conflict with another, and the store owner is responsible for keeping it all working.
What Moves Cleanly
Shopify's guide to migrating from WooCommerce lists the main data most stores move: products, customers, historical orders, reviews, and blog posts and pages. Products and customers are the simplest. You can export them from WooCommerce as CSV files and import them with Shopify's free Store Migration app, or edit them to match Shopify's product CSV template.
A few details are worth knowing before you start. Imported products arrive as drafts, so nothing goes live until you publish it. WooCommerce exports a variable product as a parent row plus one row per variation, while Shopify's CSV puts the product details and first variant on the same row. And Shopify products can have a maximum of three options, so a WooCommerce product with four or more variation attributes imports without variants and needs to be rebuilt.
Some WooCommerce data isn't in the standard exports or can't be imported by CSV.
- Historical orders can't be imported by CSV. Use a third-party migration app.
- Reviews aren't in the WooCommerce product export. Move them with your reviews app's import tools.
- Coupons can't be imported by CSV. Recreate them as Shopify discounts or use an app such as Matrixify.
- Blog posts and pages aren't in WooCommerce exports. Recreate them or import them with an app.
- Customer passwords can't be migrated. Plan a clear email asking customers to set up their account on the new store.
Redirects Protect Your Rankings
WooCommerce and Shopify use different URL patterns. Shopify product URLs sit under /products/ and collections under /collections/, while WooCommerce stores often use /product/ and /product-category/ or a custom structure. If old URLs are left to break, the search traffic and links built up over years go with them.
Before launch, export every indexed URL from the old site, including products, categories, blog posts, and key pages. Match each one to its new Shopify URL and load them as 301 redirects in Shopify. Then check that page titles and meta descriptions carried over, update internal links in content, and submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console on launch day.
Replace Plugins With Fewer Moving Parts
A migration is a good time to look at every plugin you run and ask what it's for. Some features are built into Shopify, such as checkout, payments, shipping rates, and basic discounts. Others need an app. Map each plugin to a built-in feature, an app, or nothing at all. Most stores we move end up with fewer add-ons than they started with.
Start With an Inventory
Start with an inventory: product count and variant structure, customers, order history you need to keep, reviews, content pages, and every plugin. Export a full list of URLs from your current site and Search Console. With that in hand, you can estimate the migration properly and decide what to rebuild and what to leave behind.
Weighing a move from WooCommerce? Book a call with our team.
Sources
- WordPress.org bans WP Engine, blocks it from accessing its resources TechCrunch, September 2024
- WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org WordPress.org News, September 2024
- Migrate from WooCommerce Shopify Help Center